Ball dispensing machines for softballs and baseballs have become more and more popular in recent years. The typical ball dispenser allows for someone such as a coach/helper to stand behind the dispenser which is usually mounted on a tripod type stand and feed balls into the dispenser which are automatically pitched along a trajectory line to a batter. Batters practice hitting the pitched balls to develop their skills. Typically, once the pitching machine is set up, the coach must manually adjust the pitching machine either by mechanically rising or lowering the head of the pitching machine for vertical trajectory. For horizontal trajectory the entire pitching machine must be lifted and rotated left or right to achieve the desired location of the pitch. Changing this trajectory line allows the batter to hit the ball at different locations to gain better batting versatility. However, once these mechanical adjustments are made, the user must verify the trajectory of the pitched ball to insure it is in the desired location, resulting in loss of hitting time for each batter. The combination of downtime and manual adjustments results in rare changes to the pitching machine since it is undesirable to do so. Thus, batters usually are stuck with hitting balls along the same pitched trajectory.
Several United States patents are considered relevant to this matter. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,288,421 to Peterson; 3,669,451 to Welbourn; 3,713,653 to Romans; 3,784,193 to Simjian; 4,313,603 to Simjian; 4,391,441 to Simjian; 4,763,151 to Klinger; 5,221,242 to Weber et al.; and 5,941,807 to Cassidy et al. However, none of these patents solves all the problems with the prior art described above.